British tenor saxophonist Courtney Pine (1964) grew up with
funk, soul and reggae music, influences that were still discernable on
Journey to the Urge Within (july 1986), containing the
hit song Children of the Ghetto.
The influence of John Coltrane and of the neo-traditionalists merged instead on
the acoustic Destiny's Song + the Image of Pursuance (august 1987),
but that turned out to be only the beginning of a tortuous stylistic itinerary
that took him from Jamaica to Africa to India and that peaked with To The Eyes Of Creation (1992). Even the strictly jazzy Modern Day Jazz Stories (1996), featuring keyboardist Geri Allen, trumpeter Eddie Henderson and vocalist Cassandra Wilson, turned out to be a detour rather than a maturation
because Underground (1997) employed turntables, drum-machines and
digital programming.